If you factor in how much those fees are worth, you’ll can get a sense of what Goldman actually valued Facebook:

$1.5 billion special purpose vehicle. As part of the deal Goldman gets to create a $1.5 billion special purpose vehicle to allow private wealth management clients to invest in Facebook with a 4% placement fee.

IPO and Corporate Banking Fees. Deal positions Goldman nicely to lead their eventual IPO and be their preferred investment banker on all large financial transactions including debt raises, acquisitions

Value to Goldman: $100 million to $300 million. IPO fees (6% of offering) alone can be $100 million. Then you get secondary offerings, debt raises, acquisition advisory and all other financial transactions

Value to Goldman: $30 million per year. Assuming 1% fee, on now $12 billion of value to Mark Zuckerberg, this could potentially lead to $120 million. However, since most of the money is tied up in Facebook stock, it won’t all be actively managed.

The above valuations are highly speculative and don’t take into account costs associated with generating those revenues, the chance that Goldman doesn’t end up getting all of the business above or the face that Goldman was likely to lead the IPO already.

That being said, it’s also likely that Goldman will generate more benefits than I’ve outlined above.

Goldman Actually Valuing Facebook at Way Less Than $50 Billion

Considering that Goldman is only investing $375 million and assuming Goldman will generate $100 million of value, it implies Goldman valued Facebook at $36 billion, not $50 billion. At $250 million of value, it implies a $16 billion valuation.

And, of course, it’s also likely that all of the fees pays for the whole investment thus saying nothing about Facebook’s valuation.

In other words, this was a strategic investment in Facebook, not a financial one.